Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

Malcolm Harris

READING PALO ALTO reminded me of Rilke wondering what he might hear passing a phonograph needle over the coronal suture of a skull. Instead of a skull, though, it’s our planet with railroads like sutures crisscrossing its face, and Malcolm Harris is listening intently for what lies beneath the wheels on the rails, the seemingly smooth hum of progress. Harris details a harrowing trip ranging over 150 years, following historical tracks and articulating the journey in a way that reveals the reverberating remanences of the Palo Alto system. At times, he focuses on particular historical peculiarities and at others paints broad geopolitical pictures with careful observations of the dynamics animating the cogs ratcheting us toward the present. But Harris also looks forward from where we are today and begins to wonder how we might jump the rails and plant our feet gently back on Earth.

—Ricky Green

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

David Graeber

IN 2013, the anthropologist David Graeber published an essay based on a hunch: what, he asked, if all those administrative, middle-manager-ish jobs that seem kind of useless from the outside actually are? The piece struck a nerve, prompting an outpouring of responses from people who suspected their own jobs were “bullshit” and were relieved someone finally said so. Graeber expanded it into 2018’s Bullshit Jobs, a cheeky, rigorous, readable manifesto on the social consequences of “employment that is so completely pointless . . . even the employee cannot justify . . . the conditions of its existence” (even if their job necessitates that they pretend otherwise).

Despite the playful title (and the frequency of the word bullshit), Graeber makes plain the issue’s gravity. If large segments of our society are spending their time doing work even they believe is useless, this is “a terrible psychic wound.” The book is a much-needed call for dignity in labor. It exemplifies the coalition-building power of articulating a phenomenon that countless people experience but are afraid to name.

—Tajja Isen

Okapi Tale

Jacob Kramer

Illustrated by K-Fai Steele

WHEN NOODLEPHANT INVENTED the Phantastic Noodler (an ingenious device that turns anything—pillows, pens, shoelaces—into pasta), she wanted everyone in Beaston to be able to feed themselves. The ruling-class kangaroos disagreed, and it took some courageous civil disobedience (see Kramer and Steele’s previous book Noodlephant) to overturn unjust laws and ensure community ownership of this marvelous machine. But maintaining equity requires vigilance, and while Noodlephant is away, a wealthy Okapi-talist slips into port. Cutting a deal with the mayor, he purchases the Noodler, vowing to “restore the good old days”—ahem—before buying the grocery stores and raising prices. Soon everyone is forced to work at his factory just to afford food. The animals protest, to no avail. The city expands its jail.

When at last our heroine returns home, she spurs another rebellion. Together, the animals sabotage the warehouse, vote to impeach the corrupt mayor, reinstall the noodlemaker into public domain, and run the Okapi out of town. See what mass mobilization can accomplish?!

—Kathleen Yale

Sometimes a Great Notion

Ken Kesey

FLOYD EVENWRITE IS having a rough time of it. The union representative is struggling to negotiate a deal for the striking loggers of the small Oregon town of Wakonda. Alongside violent indigestion, he faces the equally violent strike-bucking Stamper family, a fiercely insular bunch governed by their infamous motto “Never Give a Inch!” Reviled by the town’s residents, the Stampers—patriarch Henry, golden boy Hank, his resigned wife, Viv, and affable Joe Ben—are soon joined by Leland, the college-educated half brother on a quest for vengeance. The battle between the Stampers’ old-fashioned American individualism and the loggers’ burgeoning unity provides a background for a family tableau reminiscent of Greek mythology. Kesey renders the Oregon Coast Range ecosystem in loving detail, and his stream-of-consciousness prose depicts the eccentric cast of townsfolk so powerfully you feel like a Wakonda resident yourself, watching the Stamper family’s death throes with horrified awe.

—Signe Miner

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Katherine Boo

WHEN IT WAS PUBLISHED IN 2012, Katherine Boo’s unflinching portrayal of life in a sprawling Mumbai slum made the world of Dickens seem tame. Sure, we sorta knew the world’s poor lived in squalid conditions, crammed into slums, favelas, and shantytowns. But rarely did we hear their names or get such a humane view of their daily lives, their fight to sustain hope despite constant violence, hunger, and despair. Boo spent three years among the residents of the Annawadi slum, a cockeyed settlement of tin-roof huts and shacks in the shadow of Mumbai’s International Airport. From within this “sumpy plug of slum,” Boo unearths stories both tragic and poignant—about residents’ resilient efforts to raise families, earn a living, or simply survive. These unforgettable characters all nurture far-fetched dreams of a better life. As one boy tells his brother: “Everything around us is roses. . . . And we’re like the shit in between.”

—Neal Thompson